Chapter 97: Wind!
The taxi tore through River City’s night, neon lights outside the window flashing across Chen Yu’s handsome profile in quick, restless streaks.
He leaned back in the rear seat, fingers drumming mindlessly on his knee, his thoughts a tangled mess.
An hour ago, he had still been grieving over the sudden departure of the girl he had loved from afar.
And now he was on his way to another woman’s house to retrieve a notebook that might hold the final secret.
Of course, there was an even more important question before him.
When he got to Liu Hong’s place, should he take care of business first, or take care of business first?
The order mattered. Very much.
Chen Yu rubbed his brow irritably, forcing himself to calm down as he sank his awareness inward.
A deep-blue system interface slowly rose before his mind.
Master Detective System
Host: Chen Yu
Level: 1 (0/5000)
Skill Points: 1795
Skills: Rewind (Level 1), Eye of Insight (Beginner)
Item Use Record: Insulation (single-use, used), Mobile Phone (claimed), SIM Card (claimed)
The system had already chimed earlier in the interrogation room, but he had been too immersed in the thrill of exposing the truth to pay it any mind.
After returning to the hotel, Li Qing’s disappearance had pushed the matter clean out of his head.
One thousand seven hundred ninety-five points.
The reward for the Zhang Luoluo murder case had finally arrived.
“Damn it. Talk about stingy.”
Chen Yu cursed under his breath.
Liu Gang had killed three people—Zhang Luoluo, the pipe smoker’s wife, and a call girl knocked up by Mister Jin—and yet the system only counted Zhang Luoluo’s case?
This damned system was not only illogical in the way it handled things; even its rewards were rigid to the point of absurdity.
He glanced at the shop. The dazzling array of goods still glared back at him.
Upgrading the system to level two would cost two thousand points. He was just short.
Crisis Warning, like Eye of Insight, required one thousand points. He did not know whether it was worth exchanging for.
As for luxury cars and mansions, they no longer stirred the slightest interest in him.
Right now, his mind was full of the missing girl he had once yearned for, and that damned notebook.
And Liu Hong...
He was not in the mood.
Chen Yu closed the system interface, shut his eyes, and rested against the seat.
The car came to a smooth stop in front of Liu Hong’s aging villa.
Chen Yu paid the fare, got out, and walked familiarly toward one of the brightly lit houses.
Standing before the door, he steadied himself and pressed the doorbell.
Ding-dong.
The clear chime rang with striking clarity in the silent night.
A few seconds later, the lock clicked softly.
The door was pulled open a crack from the inside.
A wave of womanly fragrance, cool and delicate like orchids, slipped instantly into Chen Yu’s nose.
Standing behind the door was Liu Hong.
She had clearly just bathed; her slightly damp hair hung casually over her shoulders, and she wore only a black silk nightgown as sheer as a cicada’s wing.
Warm light from the villa spilled from behind her, tracing every curve of her well-kept, full figure in exquisite detail.
The long legs glimpsed beneath the hem were dazzlingly pale.
A woman in her forties, yet she possessed a charm so devastating that even girls in their twenties might not have it.
A blush still colored her cheeks, the faint, intoxicating flush of recent tears.
Those watery peach-blossom eyes, the moment they fell on Chen Yu, first flashed with panic, then filled with a searing expectancy.
“You... you’re here...”
Her voice was soft and sweet, trembling just enough to be irresistible.
Chen Yu’s gaze, hooked like a fishhook, roamed over her without concealment.
From her delicate collarbone, down to the lush fullness barely restrained by silk, and then to her flat, taut waist...
His throat bobbed once, and he smiled.
“Hong-jie, I wanted to explain about me questioning your brother...”
Liu Hong raised a hand to stop him.
“Come in.”
Chen Yu stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him.
Click.
The soft sound seemed to sever two worlds.
Only one dim floor lamp was lit in the living room, and the air was thick with a languid, suggestive warmth.
Looking at the beautiful mature woman before him, whose breathing had already grown noticeably quicker, Chen Yu’s earlier dilemma about whether to handle business first or business first vanished in an instant.
To hell with the notebook.
The case could wait.
But a ripe peach, if not plucked in time, would only overripe.
He advanced step by step until he had backed Liu Hong into a corner, his tall frame completely enveloping her.
“Hong-jie...”
He lowered his head, his lips almost brushing her earlobe, his voice so honeyed it seemed to drip with oil.
“You said... to wait for you.”
“So I came.”
...
An hour later.
On the bed in the master bedroom, the alluring mature beauty had already fallen into a deep sleep.
Her face still carried a flushed, satisfied glow; the corners of her eyes even held a few glistening traces of tears, yet the corners of her mouth curved faintly upward, as if she had finally understood everything.
Chen Yu slipped silently from her side, picked up his clothes from the floor, and dressed with gentle movements.
The frenzy and passion from before had ebbed away, and his state had once again returned to calm sharpness.
Liu Hong was more understanding than he had expected—or perhaps hopelessly love-struck.
No explanation was needed; everything had been spoken in action.
Chen Yu gave an awkward smile, quietly pulled the bedroom door shut, and, barefoot, moved soundlessly up to the second floor.
Luo Xiangdong’s study.
Everything here remained exactly as it had been before he vanished, as though even the air had frozen eleven years ago.
Chen Yu’s eyes locked at once onto the large rosewood desk.
A somewhat worn hardcover notebook lay quietly there.
This was it.
His heart missed a beat.
He strode forward, reaching out, his fingertip stopping just before it touched the cover.
He drew a deep breath and forced down the surge in his chest.
Then he pressed his hand down hard.
Rewind.
Buzz—
A familiar wave of dizziness instantly crashed through his mind.
The scene before his eyes shattered like a mirror, rapidly reversing and reassembling.
Light and shadow shifted.
In the next second, an entirely new image exploded in Chen Yu’s mind.
It was a small grove in the afternoon, sunlight filtering through dense branches and scattering mottled flecks of gold.
The air was fresh, carrying the scent of earth and grass.
In the image, two young men in white shirts were holding each other tightly.
It was an embrace of utter purity, without the slightest trace of vulgar desire or worldly filth, containing only deep attachment and... reluctance.
The view showed them from behind.
Chen Yu could not see their faces.
But he recognized one of those backs almost at once.
The slightly lean figure, shoulders trembling faintly, was the young Luo Xiangdong.
And the other one...
Chen Yu’s pupils contracted sharply.
The other back was equally slender, and its height and build were astonishingly similar to Luo Xiangdong’s.
As if they were twins.
Chen Yu’s mind spun at full speed, fragments of memory flashing wildly before him.
And then—
The image shifted again.
The grove vanished.
What appeared next were a pair of fair, slender young hands.
Those hands were holding the hardcover notebook.
A moment later, another pair of hands reached out from the opposite side.
Those hands were just as delicate, save for the slight calluses on the tips of the index fingers left by years of writing.
Chen Yu recognized those hands.
They were Luo Xiangdong’s hands.
The fair hands carefully handed the notebook to Luo Xiangdong.
Luo Xiangdong took it and gripped it tightly.
The image ended abruptly.
Rewind complete.
Chen Yu yanked his hand back, stumbling two steps in retreat until his back slammed hard against the bed with a muffled thud.
He gasped for breath, and cold sweat had already soaked his forehead.
Only one thought kept echoing madly in his mind, so violently that it seemed ready to split his reason apart.
That notebook...
It had not been bought by Luo Xiangdong himself.
That notebook...
Had been given to him by that person, the mysterious man in the grove who had embraced him, the man whose back was strikingly similar to his...
One word burst from his mind like a crazed cry:
Madness.